Dear Brethren and Friends,
God has truly blessed us in this Work in many ways. We are now starting to have a more powerful impact in many parts of the world. That is very good—and something for which we can be very thankful. But each of us must deeply realize that God’s Word tells us again and again that severe persecution has usually come along with any powerful teaching of the Truth. “That,” as they say, “comes with the territory.”
But are you genuinely “ready”?
What is your personal “breaking point”? What will be your reaction to genuine persecution such as we have never before experienced in this age? We all need to analyze this question and try to think through ahead of time both what we might do, and what we really ought to do when severe persecution arises.
On the editorial page of a recent Wall Street Journal, I read a very touching article by Jere Van Dyk, describing the persecutions of sincere missionaries in far-flung corners of the earth. He wrote:
“On December 8, 1934, in a village near Nanjing, in eastern China, two distant cousins of mine, John and Betty Stam, gave their three-month-old daughter to their Chinese maid and asked her to hide the baby. Then they knelt on the floor in prayer as Communist soldiers burst into their home and cut off their heads. They were Christian missionaries.… I thought of them as I read about the three missionaries killed recently in Yemen. As tragic as the story is—they were killed in Jibla on December 30, when a man sneaked a rifle into the missionary hospital where they worked and shot them as they sat at a table—evangelical Christians won’t be completely saddened by it.… American missionaries, like their brothers and sisters in Canada, Europe and elsewhere, feel that God is guiding them. They go where there is a need. At memorial services for the missionaries killed in Yemen, I am sure, people sang hymns and grieved, but through their tears their faces shone, for they knew in their hearts that the missionaries did not die in vain” (January 11, 2003).
Even though these missionaries probably did not have their minds opened by God to the full Truth that God has revealed to His true Church, their sincere faith and courage is very exemplary. Will we—we who have God’s Holy Spirit, and should have greater understanding—show the same commitment and faith when our time of trial comes?
May God help us!
For religious persecution is raging all over the world even as I write. Literally tens of thousands of sincere people professing Christianity are being harassed and tortured in China, Burma, throughout the Muslim world and in many other places. You and I need to understand. As we say: “The time for ‘playing church’ is over!” The true people of God must develop a deeper understanding and faith. Each of us must develop—through God’s Holy Spirit—a deeper commitment to fully obey our God, to walk with Him daily and hourly and to utterly surrender our entire lives into His faithful care. As the Apostle Paul stated: “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
Dear brethren, I have cited Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:9–10 many times. Please read these words with understanding—for what they describe will soon begin to happen! “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.”
As this Work of the living Christ grows in power and scope, we will be “hated” by all nations. Jesus said so! Many of God’s people will be supernaturally protected from the full fury of the Great Tribulation (Revelation 12:13–17). But no doubt some ministers—and some zealous brethren—may be persecuted, beaten, thrown in prison and otherwise mistreated and possibly even killed before the full scale Tribulation begins!
So we must all “count the cost.” As Jesus told His disciples, including you and me: “Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, ‘If anyone comes to Me and does not hate [love less, by comparison] his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it’” (Luke 14:25–28).
Again, Jesus tells us: “And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes” (Matthew 10:22–23). And later: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (vv. 28–31).
Brethren, we must let these words “ring in our ears” so that when the reality of Jesus’ warnings begin to occur we will not be confused, astonished or frightened. For, as the servants of the living God, we must meditate on these things, study the examples of persecution and of faith in God’s Word and then think through in advance what our reaction must be. Then, we need to cry out to God day and night to draw us ever closer to Him and into full surrender as the end of this age approaches.
How would you like to be imprisoned in a dungeon and then let down into a tank filled with “mire”? That is exactly what happened to Jeremiah—one of God’s greatest prophets! A weak and vacillating King Zedekiah of Judah handed Jeremiah over to some of the princes who hated his warnings and wanted to destroy him. “Then Zedekiah the king said, ‘Look, he is in your hand. For the king can do nothing against you.’ So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the king’s son, which was in the court of the prison, and they let Jeremiah down with ropes. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire. So Jeremiah sank in the mire” (Jeremiah 38:5–6).
Then, a God-fearing black man heard of Jeremiah’s predicament and rescued him! (vv. 7–13). But Jeremiah still remained in prison for months, until King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon conquered Jerusalem and let him go free. It must have been a long and painful experience.
The Apostle Paul was also one of the most dedicated servants of God in human history. Yet God allowed Paul to go through trial after trial. Feeling impelled to prove his dedication because of the accusations of false ministers, the Apostle Paul wrote: “Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness—besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:23–28).
What an example to us!
For, if need be, we must be prepared to follow the examples of Paul, of Jeremiah and of Jesus Christ Himself—and many other faithful servants of God down through the centuries—in going through trials, tests and severe persecution. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, pointedly instructs all of us: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works” (Matthew 16:24–27).
We are “saved” or justified from our past sinful lives by Jesus’ shed blood. But, as verse 27 points out, we are rewarded according to our “works”—according to the degree of our obedience to God, and our service to God and to fellow man. God demands that we act on our faith in Him! “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20). This means that we must still remain faithful and obedient, even during times of trial and persecution. All of God’s servants down through time have faced this same requirement. Why should we be any different?
At a time of severe persecution, Paul wrote to the Thessalonian Christians: “We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other, so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy” (2 Thessalonians 1:3–5). Our willingness to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ is “evidence” to God that we are “worthy” of the Kingdom of God—as Paul wrote. Today, many of God’s people are physically old and certainly weak in many ways. God knows this. He is a loving Father. He will not “tempt” or test us beyond what we are able to bear, but will also “make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Dear brethren, we need to help one another, encourage one another and pray fervently for one another that each of us may be able to “bear our cross” as Jesus did. We must have Jesus Christ really living within us in order to truly please God—and in order to have the absolute faith and the courage to make it through the coming trials and tribulations prophesied to come on God’s people at the time of the end.
Faith comes by “hearing” (or studying) the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Each of us needs to be earnestly and thoughtfully studying the examples of faith under adversity that are sprinkled all through the Bible. We need to pray with our whole being that God will give us, and our brethren, the faith and courage we will surely need in the years ahead.
And all of us need to remember the example of radiant faith exemplified by the Apostle Paul not long before he was martyred: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:6–8).
